Team of Rivals - The Library of the Uncommons

Paperback

English language

Published Nov. 7, 2013 by Penguin Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-241-96608-2
OCLC Number:: 812070146

(2 reviews)

This brilliant, multi-million-selling biography is now the inspiration for a major Steven Spielberg film starring Daniel Day-Lewis.

Team of Rivals shows how Abraham Lincoln saved Civil War-torn America by appointing his fiercest rivals to key cabinet positions.

As well as a thrilling piece of narrative history, it's an inspiring study of one of the greatest leaders the world has ever seen. --back cover

18 editions

Matthew Royal reviewed Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Review of 'Team of Rivals' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Fascinating historical portrait of Lincoln I hadn't heard before. Starting this book, I expected to learn more about how keeping his former rivals in his presidential cabinet helped him make a stronger presidency, but really, it was simply stated that conversation among the cabinet was contentious, occasionally someone had to be replaced, and at the end of his life Lincoln and Seward had developed a strong mutual love for each other. No larger lessons or principals, but a good historical exception that rather than being a Pollyanna philosophy of life, was actually a shrewd political calculation that modern politicians such as Hillary Clinton in her defeat of Sanders could have duplicated.

alrowell reviewed Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Review of 'Team of Rivals' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I have a new appreciation of Lincoln as a shrewd political tactician and a phenomenally self-made man. His singular focus on preserving the union required great skill and tremendous patience--particularly in assembling his cabinet from his outmaneuvered and dismayed rivals for the presidency. Doris Kearns Goodman portrays a man who takes responsibility for his mistakes (and sometimes for those of his cabinet and generals). For the Great Emancipator, freeing the slaves from bondage was a political calculation balancing demands of republicans and radicals and a strategic decision to build the Northern armies from the ranks of freed slaves. Only later does one get the sense that his commitment to honor the emancipation proclamation and the pursuit of the 13th amendment had a strong moral foundation.

The book is a formidable portrait of a complicated man, brought into sharpest contrast with her attention to Seward, Chase, Stanton, McClellan, and others who …

I have a new appreciation of Lincoln as a shrewd political tactician and a phenomenally self-made man. His singular focus on preserving the union required great skill and tremendous patience--particularly in assembling his cabinet from his outmaneuvered and dismayed rivals for the presidency. Doris Kearns Goodman portrays a man who takes responsibility for his mistakes (and sometimes for those of his cabinet and generals). For the Great Emancipator, freeing the slaves from bondage was a political calculation balancing demands of republicans and radicals and a strategic decision to build the Northern armies from the ranks of freed slaves. Only later does one get the sense that his commitment to honor the emancipation proclamation and the pursuit of the 13th amendment had a strong moral foundation.

The book is a formidable portrait of a complicated man, brought into sharpest contrast with her attention to Seward, Chase, Stanton, McClellan, and others who served, and in some cases, undermined, the efforts of a determined president. This is a remarkable work.

Subjects

Politics and government
Presidents
Political leadership
Biography

Places

United States